Dictator
by TheReader321
Summary: As the war against the Knights of Walpurgis takes a new turn, a frustrated follower of the Order is called to a private meeting with the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Unbeknownst to him and everyone, the seemingly kind Chief Warlock Dumbledore has a dark secret that casts a shadow over the future of the Wizarding World. Basically a combination of Harry Potter and Star Wars.


Two masked, robed, silent guards flanked the door to the Chief Warlock's private box in the Three Broomsticks. Harry had heard of them before, but he had never seen one face-to-face. They were called _Acolytes _and were said to be recruited from the greatest duelling schools on the continent. While many unsavoury rumours had once swirled on why the Chief Warlock saw the need to recruit foreign wizards to protect himself instead of the traditional Hit Wizards, the nation's attention was now locked on the brutal conflict fought between the Ministry and the Knights of Walpurgis.

As his path eventually took him in front of the box itself, Harry found that he didn't need to speak; as soon as he approached, one of them whispered, "You are expected," and opened the door. The small round box had only a handful of seats, hidden behind magically spelled walls that secretly overlooked the spread of overdressed beings who filled every seat in the tavern; tonight, it seemed everyone had forgotten there was a war raging on in the background. Harry barely gave a glance toward the immense sphere of shimmering lights that rippled gently surrounding the orchestra; he had no interest in theatre, Fae or otherwise.

In the dim semi-gloom, the Chief Warlock sat with the Court Scribe of the Wizengamot, Caradoc Dearborn, and his special advisor, Elphias Doge. Harry stopped at the back of the box. _If I were the spy the Order wants me to be, I suppose I should be creeping up behind them so that I can listen in. _

A sudden spasm of distaste passed over his face; he took care to win it off before he spoke. "Sir. I'm very sorry that I'm late."

Dumbledore turned towards him, and his face immediately lit up. "Yes, Harry! Don't worry. Come in, my boy, come in. Thank you for your report on the Order meeting this afternoon—it made most interesting reading. And now I have good news for you— Ministry Intelligence has located Bellatrix Lestrange!"

"That's tremendous!" Harry shook his head, wondering if Sirius would be embarrassed to have been scooped by the Aurors. "She won't escape us again."

"I'm going to—Elphias, take a note please—I will direct the Order to give you this assignment, Harry. Your talents are wasted on Hogwarts—you should be out in the field."

Harry frowned. "Thank you, sir, but the Advance Guard coordinates Order assignments."

"Of course, of course. Mustn't step on Alastor's toes, must we? The Guard are so jealous of their political prerogatives. Still.. one does wonder at their collective wisdom if they were to...choose someone else."

"As I said in my report sir, they've already assigned Sirius to be the one to find Lestrange." _Because they want to keep me here, where I am supposed to spy on you. _

"To find him, yes. But you are the best man to apprehend him—though of course the Advance Guard cannot always be trusted to do the right thing.""They try. I—believe they try, sir."

"Do you still? Sit down." Dumbledore looked at the other two beings in the box. "Leave us." They obediently rose and withdrew, leaving the box without a passing glance.

Harry quietly wondered at the absolute loyalty they displayed towards the Headmaster, before quickly taking Caradoc Dearborn's seat.

Dumbledore gazed distractedly down at the graceful undulations of the Fae principal soloist for a long moment, frowning as though there was so much he wanted to say, he was unsure where exactly to begin. Finally he sighed heavily and leaned close to Harry.

"Harry my boy, I think you know by now that I cannot rely upon the Advance Guard of the Order of the Griffin. That is why I put you on it. If they have not yet tried to use you in their plot, they soon will."

Harry kept his face carefully blank. "I'm not sure I understand sir."

"You must sense what I have come to suspect," Dumbledore said grimly. "The Advance Guard is after more than independence from Wizengamot oversight; I believe they intend to eventually seize control of the Ministry itself."

"Headmaster—." Harry stammered.

Dumbledore sternly cut him off. "I believe they are planning treason. With every passing day, they plan to overthrow the Wizengamot, and replace me as both Chief Warlock and Headmaster with someone weak enough that they can dominate the entire nation."

"I _can't _believe that the Council would—"

"Harry, search your feelings. You do know, don't you?" Harry quickly looked away. He couldn't bare to look into the Headmaster's kind blue eyes at this time. "I know for a fact that they don't trust you..."

With force, Dumbledore continued. "Or the Wizengamot. Or the Ministry. Or the traditions that we wizards have practised for thousands of years, for that matter. The Advance Guard is not elected. It selects its own members according to its own rules—a less generous man than I might say whim—and gives them authority backed by power. Black, Longbottom, Shacklebolt…. All members of the Sacred Twenty Eight and yet they would rather spit on the gifts given upon us by Mother Magic than embrace our birthright."

"I admit..." Harry glanced back up at Dumbledore before looking back down at his hands. "...my faith in them has been... shaken."

"How? Have they approached you already? Have they ordered you to do something dishonest?" Dumbledore's frown cleared into a gently wise smile that was oddly reminiscent of Remus'. "They want you to _spy _on me, don't they?"

Harry paled.

"It's all right, Harry. I have nothing to hide."  
"I—don't know what to say..."

"Do you remember," Dumbledore said, drawing away from Harry so that he could lean back comfortably in his seat, "how as a young boy, when you first came to Hogwarts, I tried to teach you the ins and outs of politics?"

Distracted from his earlier discomfort, Harry smiled faintly. "I do happen to remember that at first I didn't much care for the lessons."

Dumbledore chuckled lightly. "For any lessons, as I recall. But it truly is a pity; you should have paid more attention. To understand politics is to understand the fundamental nature of thinking beings. Right now, you should remember one of my first teachings: all those who gain power are afraid to lose it."

"The Order use their power for the good of wizarding kind," Harry said, a little too firmly.

"Good is a point of view, Harry. And the Order's concept of the greater good is not the only valid one. Take Grindelwald, for example. From my reading, I have gathered that his followers believed in justice and security every bit as much as the Order—"

"The Order believes in justice and peace."

"In these troubled times, is there a difference?" Dumbledore asked mildly. "The Order has not exactly done a stellar job of bringing peace to the nation, you must agree. All their supposed might, painstakingly clawed away from the Auror Office, and still wizards from Glasgow to Dorset lay awake at night, cowering in fear of the Death Eaters. Who's to say Gellert might not have done better?"

"This is another of those arguments you probably shouldn't bring up in front of the Guard, if you know what I mean," Harry replied with a disbelieving smile.

"Oh, yes. Because Grindelwald's Alliance would be a threat to the Order of the Griffin's power. Lesson one."

Harry shook his head. "Because wizards who fall into the arms of the Dark Arts are evil."

"From the Order's point of view," Dumbledore allowed. "Evil is a label we all put on those who threaten us, isn't it? Yet the Alliance and the Order are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power."

The Order's priority is for greater understanding," Harry countered. "For greater knowledge of Mother Magic—"

"Which brings with it greater control, does it not?"

"Well... yes." Harry had to laugh. "I should know better than to argue with a politician."

"We're not arguing, Harry. We're just talking." Dumbledore shifted his weight, settling in comfortably. "Perhaps the real difference between the Order and the Alliance lies only in their orientation; where the Order gains power through understanding, the Alliance gains understanding through power. This is the true reason the Alliance have always been more powerful than the Order. Alastor and his followers fear the Dark Arts so much they cut themselves off from the most important aspect of life: passion. Of any kind. They don't even allow themselves to love."

_Except for me _, Harry thought of the loving woman he saw as his soulmate, waiting for him back at the home they shared. _But then, I've never been exactly the perfect member of the Order, no matter what Sirius says. _

"The Alliance does not fear the Dark Arts. The Alliance have no fear. They embrace the whole spectrum of experience, from the heights of transcendent joy to the depths of hatred and despair. Beings have these emotions for a reason, Harry. That is why Gellert was so powerful: he was not afraid to _feel _."

"Grindelwald's followers rely on passion for strength," Harry said, "but when that passion runs dry, what's left?"

"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a great deal. Perhaps it never runs dry at all. Who can say they know exactly the power of love?"

"They think inward, only about themselves."

"...And the Order doesn't?"

"The Order is selfless—we erase the self, to join with the flow of Mother Magic. We care only about others..."

Dumbledore again gave him that smile of gentle wisdom. "Or so you've been conditioned to believe. I hear the voice of Sirius Black and Alastor Moody in your answers, Harry. What do you _actually _believe?"

Harry suddenly found the Fae theatre a great deal more interesting than Dumbledore's face. "I... don't know anymore."

"It is said that if one could ever entirely comprehend a single grain of sand—really, truly understand everything about it—one would, at the same time, entirely comprehend the universe. Who's to say that one of Grindelwald's followers, by looking inward, sees less than Alastor Moody does by looking out?"

"Alastor—Alastor Moody is a good man. _That's _the difference. I don't care _who _sees _what _."

"What the Order is," Dumbledore said gently, "is a group of very powerful beings you consider to be your comrades. And you are loyal to your friends; I have known that for as long as I have known you, and I admire you for it. But are your friends truly loyal to _you _?"

Harry shot him a sudden frown. "What do you mean?"

"Would a true friend request you to do something that's _wrong _?"

"I'm not sure it's wrong," Harry said. _Sirius might have been telling the truth. It was possible. They might only want to catch Grindelwald. They might really be trying to protect Dumbledore. _

_They might.  
...Maybe. _

"Have they asked you to break the Code? To violate the Statute of Secrecy? To betray a friendship? To betray your own values?"  
"Sir—"

"Think, Harry! I have always tried to teach you to _think— _yes, yes, the Order do not think, they _know _, but those stale answers aren't good enough now, in these changing times. Consider their motives. Keep your mind clear of assumptions. The fear of losing power is a weakness of both the Order and the Alliance."

Harry sank lower in his seat. Too much had happened in too short a time. Everything jumbled together in his head, and none of it seemed to make complete sense.

_Except for what Dumbledore said. That made too much sense. _

"This puts me in mind of an old legend," Dumbledore murmured idly. "Harry—are you familiar with The Tragedy of Nicholas the Wise?"

Harry shook his head.

"Ah, I thought not. It is not a story the Order would tell you. It's an ancient legend, of an Alchemist of supreme ability who had turned his sight inward so deeply that he had come to comprehend, and master life itself. And—because the two are one, when seen clearly enough—death itself."

Harry sat up. _Was he actually hearing this? _ "He could keep someone safe from death?"

"According to the legend," Dumbledore said, "he could directly influence one's magical core to create new life itself; with such knowledge, to maintain life in someone already living would seem a small matter, wouldn't you agree?"

A universe of possibility bloomed inside Harry's head. He murmured, "Stronger than even _Death _itself..."

"The Dark Arts seems to be—from my reading—the pathway to many abilities some would consider unnatural."

Harry couldn't seem to get his breath. "What happened to him?"

"Oh, well, it is a tragedy, after all, you know. Once he had gained this ultimate power, he had nothing to fear save losing it— that's why the Order brought him to mind, my boy."

Harry was growing frustrated. "But what _happened _?"

"Well, to safeguard his power's existence, he taught the path toward it to his two apprentices."  
" _And _?"

"And his apprentices murdered him in his sleep," Dumbledore said with a careless shrug. "Nicholas never saw it coming. That's the tragic irony, you see: he could have saved anyone in the world from death—except himself."

"What about the apprentices? What happened to him?"

"Oh, them. One of them goes on to become the greatest Dark Lord in the history of wizardkind..."  
"And the other one?"

Dumbledore's eyes returned to look at the stage. "I'm afraid the legend does not elaborate on the fate of the other."

"So," Harry murmured, "it's only a tragedy for Nicholas himself— for one of the apprentices, the legend has a happy ending..."

"Oh, well, yes. Quite right. I'd never really thought of it that way—rather like what we were talking about earlier, isn't it?"

"What if," Harry said slowly, almost not daring to speak the words, "it's not just a legend?"

Dumbledore turned to look back at Harry. "I'm sorry?"

"What if…. Nicholas the Wise really lived—what if someone really had this power?"

"Oh, well I am... rather certain... that Nicholas really did indeed exist. And if someone actually had this power—well, he would indeed be one of the most powerful men in the whole wizarding world, not to mention virtually immortal..."

"How would I _find _him?"

"I'm sure I couldn't say. You could ask your friends on the Advance Guard, I suppose—but of course, if they ever found him they would _kill _him on the spot. Not as punishment for any crime, you understand. Innocence is irrelevant to the Order. They would kill him simply for being Dark, and his great knowledge would die with him."

"I just—I have to—" Harry found himself half out of his seat, fists clenched and trembling. He forced himself to relax and sit back down, and he took a deep breath. "You seem to know so much about this, I need you to tell me: would it be possible, possible at all, to learn this power?"

Dumbledore shrugged, regarding him with that smile of gentle wisdom. "Well, clearly," he said, "not from the Order."


End file.
